The Pen Addict 195/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	195
Title:	I'm Flexible
Release Date:	March 9th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 195
Audio File:	Audio Episode 195
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 195
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 195. Yes, that's right. Five weeks to Atlanta. This show is brought to you by Squarespace and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined, as always, by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Are we actually recording this week?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we are recording this week. So, listeners, I would like to let you in behind the curtain a moment to understanding the way that me and Brad work together. So, a few weeks ago, I let Brad know about some scheduling, that I needed some scheduling issues. I was going to be away. I was in Dallas last week and I'm going to be away again in a couple of weeks. So, we've had to move some stuff around. And we may have heard us mention that with the way that our schedule was falling, we were going to be recording episode 201 in Atlanta, which we both felt was completely unacceptable. And it had to be episode 200. So, we decided at some point between then and episode 200 in Atlanta, we'd skip a show. So, we decided that last week, when I was going to be away, why don't we just skip that one instead of moving it around? So, we agreed that we were good and off. So, there we go. So, I am on a plane.

Kickstarter Campaign

Myke Hurley: On Wednesday, I get off the plane and I have a Slack message and an iMessage from Brad asking if we're recording. Are we recording today? I'm like, oh, Brad.

Myke Hurley: The main problem, though, of this, and I realized this last week, is we didn't mention on the show that we weren't going to be doing the episodes the next week.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: So, no one was there to support you?

Brad Dowdy: Actually, they were. And that's the only reason that made it click in my head is because someone in the Slack room, like an hour before the show, said, oh, no podcast this week. Bummer. I'm like, what are you talking about? We're getting ready to record in like 30 minutes. And they're like, oh, okay, great.

Myke Hurley: I wonder why. Maybe they just knew I was leaving.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. So, what it boiled down to, well, they probably read the relay calendar, which it wasn't on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I did remove it from there.

Brad Dowdy: So, basically, what happened is all I did was I didn't remove it from my calendar. I just didn't take it off. So, it was always lived on my calendar, which it's a recurring event. So, it's always on those days. And I didn't delete that one particular day. So, it didn't even – we hadn't talked very much in those few days prior. So, like, if you would have said, yeah, I'm getting ready to fly out, you know, to Dallas, it would have clicked in my head. But we just didn't talk that week.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, usually with these sort of things as well, I do tend to confirm before I go. But the days leading up to me leaving for Dallas were just madness.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I was, like, fully prepped for the podcast. I had the notes ready. I was, like, mentally ready. I was just waiting for the time to come. And then, you know, I was in the chat room and saw those messages and everyone was, like, oh, yeah, you're recording after I said that. And then people were, like, isn't Myke out of town? I'm, like, maybe. It's like Heartbreak Hotel. Yeah. So, since I was so ready for it and I was ready for the show, I went ahead and did a Periscope for, like, 45 minutes. You did your one-man show. Yeah. I had to get that out of my system, right? You know, I was, like, mentally ready to go. And then when it didn't happen, I was just, like, holding my hands up, like, shrug. You know, I don't know what to do with myself right now. So, let's do a Periscope. So, we'll put that link into my catch of the Periscope that you can go back and see it if you haven't already. But, yeah. So, I filled in the time admirably. And that was a full screw-up on my part. So, sorry, mate.

Myke Hurley: Don't apologize to me. I was on a plane. I hear you.

Brad Dowdy: You were the one who was lost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because you didn't respond to me. I was, like, this is strange. Like, I never iMessage Myke. Like, I'll get to you in Slack nine times out of ten. I was, like, I need to escalate.

Brad Dowdy: We need to go to DEF CON 5. Because I hadn't convinced myself yet that we weren't actually recording. And I just wanted to be sure. So, there you go.

Myke Hurley: That's why we are back today. We are back. So, one thing that we did miss in that recording is the Kickstarter is funded. So, thank you so much to everybody that has participated. But there is something interesting, maybe a little bit scary, that I can't quite understand with our Kickstarter, Brad. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We made an incredible amount of money. So, I'm so thankful and grateful. We made $15,279 against our goal of, I think it was like $7,000 or something like that. Yeah, $7,000 or $8,000. Which is, you know, that is amazing. So, thank you so much. We're thinking of some cool things to do with that money. And you'll hear more about that as we run up to Atlanta. Mm-hmm. But the thing that freaks me out is we had 479 backers. The campaign last year, we had 479 backers. Have we hit our limit here? Like, have we hit the maximum amount of people? So, here's something funny, right? I backed this one. I didn't back the last one.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha.

Myke Hurley: But I did back this one. Adina didn't back this one. So, basically, just me and her swapped over and everybody else backed again. It's the only thing I can try and work out how that happened.

Brad Dowdy: That's crazy. It's really crazy. Like, if you try to think about it too much, you're like, wow, this is really strange. Yep. So, what you're telling me is I need to get an export of each of the backers of each of the two projects and do a diff and see how many new or old backers we have, what the difference is.

Myke Hurley: If you are able to do that, that would be, because I guess you can, that would be just kind of fascinating. Not to share the data, but to share the totals. Yeah. That would be kind of amazing. You should work on that.

Brad Dowdy: I'll put that right at the bottom of my list.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It shouldn't go high at the top of my list, but I think it should be in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. I received a lovely little package yesterday. My pen addict swag bag. Nice. Yeah. So, this is a bunch of things, a bunch of circles that you're selling. Right.

Brad Dowdy: I like how you just support out my stuff without even giving me a chance to send you some stuff. Why would I know? Kind of a jerk that way. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Why would I? Hang on a second. Let me find my receipt here, because I think it told me my order number. Where are we? Oh, no. That's not it. Hang on. I've got it here somewhere. Because I think I remember it was a pretty early order in the system. All right. Let me take a look. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't manipulate the order number. Order number 16. Yeah. Well, you know who order number one was? I'll give you one guess.

Myke Hurley: Thomas Hall. Thomas Hall. Yeah. Of course. He's as bad as me, right? You love it. Yeah. I wanted the stuff, and it wasn't expensive. It was like $10, and I got a bunch of coasters and all that stuff, and it's amazing. I already put a pin on my, or a button, as you call them, on my bag, on my Topo bag, and I've got my water bottle sitting on a lovely coaster here. These coasters are real nice. Still my favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's our friend Bob from Skylab Letterpress. Oh, and... Honest husband.

Myke Hurley: I loved the sticker so much, it became the first sticker to adorn my smart keyboard cover. Nice. So, because I don't need space on my iPad Pro anymore, so now I'm going to start sticking stickers on the cover, and the Pen Addict one fit just perfectly on one of the ridges, because it's a big sticker. It's a great one, and yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with the patch yet. I'm going to find something special for that, but this is a great little set of stuff. People should go and find it. Brad won't talk about it, which is why I'm talking about it. Go to penaddict.com slash shop and buy all the circles that you need.

Brad Dowdy: Buy all the circles. I realized that later. I was like, wow, all this stuff looks the same. So, you know, it's the first pass that just gives you the opportunity to do something different later, right? You got to get the standard items out first, and then we'll branch out a little bit.

Myke Hurley: But these are also kind of weird stuff as well. Like, you don't usually get coasters and patches, you know? That's cool. I think these are the cool things, and now I want all of this stuff for the Relay Store. So, we're going to work on that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we'll talk about that. So, I'm totally going to put the patch on my Sinclair case. It's tailor-made for a patch.

Myke Hurley: That's a great place to put one. I hadn't even thought of that. Especially that size. My real big leather case thing from PennShot Lake came in the other day. Yeah, yeah. I felt like such a nerd.

Myke Hurley: That's amazing. Like, this huge thing, because I'm going to use that now. Like, I will use it when I'm traveling to Atlanta. I'll put all my stuff in it. Because last year, I had, like, six knock cases. And they're all, like, shoved in. So, I'll still bring some knock stuff for, like, general storage. But to keep all my fountain pens nice and safe in my suitcase, I'll put them in the big case thing that I got, which is real cool.

Brad Dowdy: That's the way to go.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: For sure.

Myke Hurley: Perfect travel. I'll put a link in the show notes to the one that I bought in case anybody's interested.

Brad Dowdy: Since I'm driving to the show last year, I have that cigar box storage. I just grabbed the cigar boxes, threw them in a bin, and put them in the trunk. Perfect.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think I remember carrying some of those things. Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So.

New Products

Brad Dowdy: But you've been privy to some of the stuff I'm working on. So, you can vouch. There's some cool stuff coming down the pipe, too, for the shop.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: There's some things that you're going to want to get your hand on. Yep, yep. Something you don't want to get your hand on, Myke, is that dang blasted scribble pen. How many emails have you gotten in the past week or two?

Myke Hurley: Or tweets? Lots and lots and lots of tweets. The reason I don't get the emails is you actually get all of the email. Right, right, right. Which makes me so happy.

Kickstarter Video

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but still, I get some direct, too.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, I've been getting tons and tons of tweets about this. I mean, rightly so, right? Sure, sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, you have spoken about so many times.

Brad Dowdy: Well, what happened was a video got posted on Facebook, and the last time I checked, it had like 3 million views. So, it just became shared all over the place and ended up kind of percolating to the top again. And then all the tech sites pick it up. And fortunately, Mashable, I didn't read them all because there's no point because they must just regurgitate the scribble nonsense. Mashable actually took it a step further and said, you know, by the way, this project's failed like three or four times. You know that, right? And, you know, there's no way this can work. You know that, right? So, they did a good job of saying, by the way, you should really think long and hard about what you're loving on here. So, they did a good job. I forget the author of the post, but they did a good job.

Myke Hurley: Raymond Wong.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. He did, towards the bottom, he did a lot of, by the ways, like this is not probably going to go well if you decide to put your money in it in the general sense. So, you know, we've talked about this time and time again, and we're not going to regurgitate it. But we just wanted to let those who happen to be new to the show or haven't heard of the scribble pen to, you know, just be warned that this is a full-on scam. And we talked about it in episode 181. We'll have the link in the show notes. And there's a full article that someone did where they tracked down the creator and the owner and talked about all the scam projects that he's done in the past and things like that. So, it's in the show notes for you to read. And if you haven't, if you're not aware of everything that we've talked about on the scribble pen, you should go back and either listen to that episode or at least read the one document that we linked in there that talks about the creator and all the bad things that he's done.

Myke Hurley: That's the Rail Oz crowdfunding con man. I'll put that in this week's show notes as well because people want to see it. True, true. Good idea. It's absolute madness. Yeah, this is like, it feels like we're venturing into organized crime at certain points. Right. It just seems insane. And it's a shame that they've, you know, they've been kicked off multiple crowdfunding sites, but yet somehow, somehow still getting any attention. Like, even this Mashable piece, whilst it's good, like, the headline in the majority of the article is intriguing. Yeah. Oh, I went into it.

Brad Dowdy: I went into it mad. I went into it mad and going, oh, come on, Mashable. Don't do this. And then, luckily, he redeemed himself at the end.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I just feel like that any piece about this should be, like, this pen is, like, should just start off with that, you know? Just so you know what we're about to talk about, you know, rather than saying it at the end. At least they said it, but, like, I feel like it might have benefited from leading that way. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and it's obviously a product that really gets people enticed and excited about it, Dom. Well, because it's amazing, right? Yeah, and people, did you, have you read the article about the coolest cooler? Have you seen this?

Myke Hurley: I saw something about it, yeah. Well, they need, like, another $15 million or something, right?

Brad Dowdy: This is the biggest Kickstarter ever. By the way, we need double the money for everyone to get your coolers. Psych. I mean, it's ridiculous, so, yeah, whatever. They're at least not scamming people. They just did a bad job. Scribble Pen is an actual scam. Are, like, people going to get those? Apparently, some people have, and they did something with Amazon where they made, like, a side project, and that's got people all bent out of shape, as it should, so. So, but, you know, you look at these products that just seem too good to be true, and you just got to just chill for a minute. If it's that good, it's going to hit the market, and, you know, saving an extra $100 now on the coolest cooler as opposed to buying it when it's actually a real product, you know, that's not that much of a savings when it's turned into a total catastrophe like it has.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yep.

Brad Dowdy: So, simmer down now.

Brad Dowdy: What's that? I liked it. That's a rabbit hole. One of my favorite skits. I was in one of the Saturday Night Live heydays with, you know, when Will Ferrell was in it. That's when I was watching Saturday Night Live, and they had an actress on there named Sherry Oteri, and she did this character that her catchphrase was simmer down now, and it's amazing. You need to go down that YouTube rabbit hole because the character's awesome.

Myke Hurley: I found a YouTube video called Simmer Down Now, Simmer to Down.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And then she's got some good ones. I think Justin Timberlake's on one of them. He was always fantastic on Saturday Night Live, and she's got some good characters, and she just goes off the deep end, and it's fantastic. It's probably one of my favorite skits ever. Pretty much anything that she's in, like the cheerleading with her and Will Ferrell, that's up my alley. So how's this pen podcast going?

Nenamisu Nova

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're completely lost now. I'm actually watching YouTube videos as we go. We're done. This is it. Okay, let's talk about Nenamisu Nova, because you've received yours since the last episode.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is another Kickstarter that, you know, we backed them the first time, and they delivered a successful product. So, hey, let's back them again, and they did it again. I went with the full titanium body Nova, and it's really good. So I'm untwisting it now. It's going to drive people crazy because it's all metal.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And it's not overly heavy. It's shaped like a Nakaya Piccolo. It looks like you could put this side to side with a couple of things, and you would think this was a several, several hundred dollar pen, when really it's more like around $100. I added in the titanium nib I had from the Nexus. I ordered that one with a Nexus, the aluminum barrel with a Nexus, with a titanium in the Nexus. So I ordered this one with a steel nib, knowing I could just pop this titanium and get the full titanium nib and body thing. I'm really, really pleased with this pen. You do not have yours yet. Is that correct? No, I got mine. No, you got yours first. Yeah. They had a delay in the U.S. with Customs. That's what it was. Naturally.

Brad Dowdy: I love it. It's really well done. The threads are minimal. They don't get in your way. The barrel shape's great. The weight, the balance is right on the money.

Brad Dowdy: I need to get my titanium nib adjusted. Any titanium nib I've ever used, if you've never used one, they're softer. So the tines spread a little bit when you write. So they're very wet, which is great. It's just, you know, if I have a medium titanium nib, it's like a straight up gusher. And I think this one's actually fine.

Myke Hurley: I had a good conversation with Myke Masayama in Atlanta about titanium nibs. And he was kind of just explaining to me how like they're so hard to work on because they're so soft. Yeah. And they always take tweaking. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So my, I had one in my Conid bulk filler, a titanium nib, and it was just a straight up gusher. And I got Myke to adjust it last year. So this might, this would be a candidate for him this year. It's a, it's a much better nib after he was able to, you know, narrow it down, lessen the flow a little bit. And now it's great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's how, that's how we had that conversation. Cause I was sitting and watching him, um, adjust your titanium nib.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep.

Myke Hurley: So did you know you could eyedropper this pen? So this is, uh, in response to, I remember last week me and you were saying like, why for the last episode, like why go full titanium? And Mr. Thomas Hall, uh, obviously the, the, uh, complete encyclopedia of pen knowledge has said, basically you would go over titanium barrel for eyedropper ring, uh, rods and pens like the Conid pilot eight to three and Visconti are titanium because they're corrosion resistant, which is not so much in a 2SB vac pens. So don't put iron gall in the vac mini he's mentioned. Uh, but basically you, if you want to eyedropper a pen, so if you want to just throw the ink into the barrel without any convert or anything like that, then you will want to use something that's titanium because it's corrosion resistant. Didn't know that.

Brad Dowdy: So I wouldn't have considered, I'm sorry, I'm squeaking my pen here. I'll put this away.

Myke Hurley: That's the problem with titanium.

Brad Dowdy: Sorry, I'm going to put this out of my hand, which I don't mind that.

Myke Hurley: No, but it is something you need to be aware of. Sure, sure, sure. They squeak like mad.

Brad Dowdy: Um, I would have never considered eyedropping a metal pen just because I thought you would be, you're increasing the, the opportunity for, uh, a leak. But, you know, the silicone grease that we use is actually made, I guess, for metal piping anyway. So I don't know why I ever thought that. I just thought that with an acrylic or plastic base threading that you would get a better seal with the silicone for the eyedropping. That's why I never considered a metal. But what Thomas is saying, you should use, if you're going to, you can do a metal pen, but you're not going to do an aluminum pen because it's going to react, actually react with the ink. It's not a leaking thing. It's a chemical thing. Um, to how the, the ink acts with the various metals it touches and, uh, titanium is actually acceptable to do this with. So I'm probably not going to try it. It still seems kind of weird having, uh, the liquid ink inside of a metal pen, um, just, just, um, held off by, uh, um, silicone grease, but maybe I'll try it one day. I'm not in a hurry to, to give that a shot.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll see. I am, uh, I, I, I would consider, uh, eyedropping this next pen though. I got the, um, the Edison Mina from the Edison group buy, which I miss, I missed one of their first group buys, um, with the black stealth Beaumont they did. It's probably three to four years ago now. And ever since then, I I've told myself I wouldn't miss one again, since that was probably like my ultimate pen. And, um, so I, I got this one and I think we ordered it in the fall and it just came in, uh, today, you know, which, which was, it was on schedule. So what it is, it's, uh, the Mina barrel, which I've never used before. So I always wanted one, um, which I liked the barrel shape. I don't love it. It's not my favorite Edison by far. Um, but it's kind of a rounded with a little bit of a flare on each end of the barrel. Um, I don't know how you would describe this shape, honestly. Um, but it's very, very sleek looking and, you know, the ends are not tapered at all. They're just flat. Um, you can, you can stand that up and you know, it's, it has the, um, very minimal markings on it. Like mine's number 31 of, I forget how many there were 40 something, but what's killer about this is the blue swirl ebonite denim. So did you see my picture of this?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's why I put it in show notes. Things of beauty.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I haven't even taken. I like the shape, man. I think it's different. I like the shape in pictures. I don't like it in practicality. I just prefer, I just, it's not bad. It's just a preference thing. Right. I prefer like the, the nemisu, the piccolo shape of the other barrel, which in this case in, in Edison terms would be the Edison pearl. It's just a personal preference. It's not a bad shape at all. And it's actually very comfortable to hold. Once you uncap it, um, the grip section and barrel fits really, really nicely in your hands. So yeah, they're talking in the chat room. It's like a Japanese sword sheath. That's kind of what it looks like. Um, it's a very Japanese looking shape. And I don't know if that's where it came from or not. I'd have to look at the, uh, the evolution of the Mina, but, um, the Mina is also not a, what does he call it? It's not a production line Edison. So you can't always get these for a great price.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I'd never heard of this one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you get this one, um, he does a, Brian does a good job of mixing in some of the non-production line shapes at a more of a production line pricing. It's a little bit more, but it's still less than it would cost if you just bought this pin one off and like pick the design yourself. And, um, you know, it's really good. I'm super happy with this pin. And he's also testing out a new nib design with this pin. It's more of a, it's, it's shaped like a Lamy steel nib or a Lamy gold nib. It's just extended a little bit longer. Um, I was a little bit. Eh, about the, the nib when I saw pictures of it, but getting it in person, um, it's really nice. It goes with the pin. Well, the way the shape, the shape of the nib really fits the shape of the bear, the barrel. And the nib writes really, really well. I have an extra fine steel nib on here. So, um, I I'm actually using that as my show notes pin today. I have it filled with, uh, D'Atrimentis Benjamin Franklin, which is a great blue ink that you can't really find anymore. But I always want to try. I always end up putting blue inks in my blue pens because I'm, uh, unoriginal that way. But yeah, I, I, I like the Mina. Um, it's, it's a good pin. And, um, I, I'm definitely happy I got this because, um, it, it does, you are able to get these, these pins at, uh, uh, at a price that's, uh, in between like the, uh, the production line and the signature line, which is like the Menlo that we bought. Right. Where you pick, basically pick out everything. You pick out your colors, your nibs, all that stuff. And, uh, it adds up. And, uh, if Brian's doing like a one-off, you know, the price is going to be expensive, but he does these group buys to allow to, to have the greater quantity to bring the price down, to give everybody the option. He does it once a year to give everyone the option to get a really cool pin at a really fair price. So props to Brian. He did a good job as always love his stuff. Big, big Edison fan.

Myke Hurley: The good thing about these type of group buys is those people then talk about them. Now I'm thinking like, oh, I should do the next one. That's exactly what happened to me. So the more, the more you do them, the more people, it's like a snowball, right?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, totally. Totally. So I actually wait for him and he does enough options in the group buy. Like I've worried, well, I'm not going to do the group buy because there's only one pin in one color in a barrel style that I don't like in an acrylic. I don't like, well, he, there's usually about two to three choices. So you can always kind of get in there on, on something you like. He does it. Like I said, he does a good job and I haven't missed the last couple. I don't think.

Myke Hurley: So as we record today, it is, there's a strong potential of new field notes. So I'm keeping my eye on, on all of the feeds and inboxes to see if we're going to get that news coming. And that'll be fun if we can do some breaking news, but I guess you'll find out by the end of the episode, if we know what the next field notes are going to be.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it seems like their emails usually come the morning, the Wednesday morning. It seems like it's a early AM Eastern time, like before lunch, but we'll see. It could hit. We might have some breaking news. Otherwise, you'll just hear us talking about them on the, on the internets between now and then. I'm sure we'll cover it next week.

Myke Hurley: Come on, field notes. So do us right. Mm-hmm. This week's episode is brought to you by Harry's. Everybody knows that good things come in threes, right? That is the general consensus. Good things come in threes. We're in the third month right now, right? It's March. Yeah. But it happens to be Harry's third anniversary. Nice. Happy anniversary, Harry's. Three years they've been around. If you sign up as a new customer for Harry's today, I've got a special deal for you to try three of their expertly crafted five-blade German razors, along with a lovely handle to put them in and shave cream for just $10. But I'll come back to that in a moment. You should know by now about Harry's. They make their own German-engineered five-blade cartridges. You're not going to get cuts. You're not going to get razor burn. What you're going to get is a close, comfortable shave. They've been doing this for three years. These people, the guys and gals over at Harry's, they know what they're doing, and they're so confident in that that they give a guarantee on the quality of their product, and they will give you a full refund if you're not happy. Harry's offers a high-quality shave at about half the price of the other big brand blades that you might be used to. On average, an everyday shaver saves $150 every single year on blades when they use Harry's, and they'll ship them to your front door for free. Their starter set is a great deal, as I mentioned a moment ago. For just $10, when you use our code, you will get a razor, moisturizing shave cream, and three razor blades. Usually, it's $15, but you want to use the code PENADDICT at checkout, and you'll get $10 off. You should be one of the one million people that have switched to Harry's. It's time to stop overpaying for a great shave. Go to harrys.com right now. You'll get that $5 off when you use the code PENADDICT at checkout with your first purchase. So, if it's your first purchase, you'll get a lovely $5 off. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S.com. Use the coupon code PENADDICT at checkout for a special $5 off. Thank you so much to Harry's for supporting this show, and RelayFM, and happy anniversary.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I totally shaved this morning.

Myke Hurley: Yeah? Feel good?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Feel good. Look good. I'm all about the Harry's. You know that. And, man, three years already. I bet I've been using them for about two. What do you think? Something like that. Something like that. It's probably been close to two years, and no chance that I'm switching to anything else. We're going back to some of the crummy, expensive stuff I used to use previously. Yep. All right. Speaking of crummy, expensive stuff I used to use previously. Just kidding. I want to talk about vintage pens. All right. Okay. Can you believe this?

Myke Hurley: Where's this come from?

Vintage Pens

Brad Dowdy: This comes from a lot of the talk around the pen show stuff about the old guard, new guard. You know, people who are into vintage pens, people who are into modern pens, and how sometimes there's not a lot of crossover between those two camps. And, you know, some of the vintage pen vendors, you know, don't understand people who listen to this podcast and have a modern pen aesthetic and pricing and things like that. And how, you know, someone like us can understand getting into the vintage market a little bit more. So, I wanted to break it down from someone who's a complete noob on vintage pens. I want to put that out there right now. I'm talking about this from a very, very, like, high-level place. Like, I don't know a lot about vintage pens, but I think what I do know is kind of a good entry point for anyone who's interested in vintage pens.

Brad Dowdy: You know, we've given some tips and tricks over the years before, but I kind of wanted to go over them again and go over some of my favorite pens that I own. And that might be a good jumping-off point for someone who's looking to get into vintage pens. So, how does that sound to you? Do you have a Parker Vacumatic as far as vintage pens, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have a Vacumatic. I have an Estabrook.

Myke Hurley: I think I have another one or two, but it's escaping my mind right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so it's not a bunch, and I don't have a bunch either.

Myke Hurley: No, I don't really like using vintage pens so much. Mm-hmm, good. I'm a little bit nervous of them. Go ahead and say why. I'm worried I'm going to break them. And I just generally feel like they're, you know, they're not as loved in my eyes because I didn't have them from the beginning. Sure. They were somebody else's in a lot of instances. Yeah, I just kind of like the new stuff, the stuff that I choose. And I feel that in a lot of instances, the vintage pens that I find, they're very beautiful, but in a different way to my tastes. Sure. You know? Yeah. I look at them. Like, the Vacumatic is one of the most beautiful pens that I own. The Golden Web that you have is just stunning. But it's of a different time, and they don't really speak to me as much, I don't think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so let's talk about why someone would purchase a vintage pen. And I think you kind of nailed that. It's an aesthetic thing to me. They have the materials that were used on some of these vintage pens, and the designs that were created can't be replicated.

Myke Hurley: No. Yeah. I see them as nice pieces to own, but not necessarily pens that I really want to use.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And that's what I wanted to get across today, that these are actually, the vintage pens that I have are actually user pens. These are like user-grade pens. People think vintage, they think, ooh, antique, collectible. These are not. These are user-grade pens that should be inked, used, carried, beaten, destroyed, anything you would do to your modern pen. Yeah. You know, that's the first thing to kind of wrap your head around. They're not meant to be coddled. These pens have been around for decades. Some of them haven't been used in decades.

Brad Dowdy: But some of them are just so cool, you're never going to be able to get anything on the modern market like this. They're also surprisingly cost-effective. Like, I think the most, I'm looking at the vintage pens. You never told me how much you paid for my golden web, and I won't ask you. I don't remember. Maybe I've looked out of my memory. The most expensive, I paid $120 for my Vacumatic. Every other one has been under $100, if not under like $60. So, I have fun.

Myke Hurley: I think your golden web was more than that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Look after it. Which I know. I know, right? So, I would expect that that one's more expensive than my other Vacum. And these pens all just kind of have a story to tell. These pens have lived a life that we haven't been involved in. And, you know, what was this golden web used for when it was a new pen? You know, who had this? Who had this on their desk? Who carried it in their jacket pocket or their purse? You know, I have a Waterman 52 with a Flex nib. You know, what was this used for, you know, back in the day when it was a new pen? And it's just kind of cool to think about those things. You know, looking at these tables and tables of vintage pens, it can get a little bit overwhelming. But I like pinpointed these five pens that I have as kind of a jumping off point. And we'll go over them one by one in just a second. But another tip for buying vintage pens is if you can, buy it in person. Because the reason a lot of us prefer modern pens is because, number one, we can get them new. And number two, they're not going to show up in the same condition because they're new out of a box. Because vintage pens obviously aren't that way. It's great to be able to talk to the person who's selling the pen to see what they know about it. Is it restored? Did they restore it themselves? You know, are any parts in this pen, if they break, are they easy to replace? You know, like the Estabrooks that we have, they have an internal sack. Well, if the sack goes bad, that's easy to replace. Because, you know, if you have a certain vacuumatic with a certain part in the filling system, maybe that'll be harder to replace because they change the filling system all the time. So, you know, if you're concerned about breaking the pen, because we're using these pens, right? If you're concerned about that, you know, you want to be able to get it repaired in a reasonable fashion. You know, are the lever parts, you know, most a lot of pens are a lever filler. Are the lever parts still available? And do you know someone that can fix that? Things like that. So, it's great to buy them in person just to test out the condition more and to inquire more deeply about the pen. So, the ones that I've chosen to talk about that are great pens, you can get for a reasonable price at a pen show, not break the budget. And, therefore, you don't have to necessarily worry about, you know, if it breaks, you can get it fixed easily or you're not out of a lot of money if it gets damaged, things like that. So, you kind of got to get that wrap around your head that, like you were saying, the vintage pens, you worry about breaking them. Well, you just kind of got to get past that. Like, when I spend $700 on a Nakaya and carry it in my jeans pocket, I'm over that, right? It's the same thing. So, the pens, like if anyone wants to get into vintage pens, the first place they should look at is Estabrook. There's so many models. They're really beautiful. The coolest thing about Estabrook is there must be 100 different nib types. You can just swap in and out. So, you can buy an Estabrook pen barrel, which is what I did for about $40. That's been restored. I mean, that's restored back into perfect writing shape. It looks beautiful. It writes wonderfully. And then you can buy additional nibs for like $3 to $5 a piece to get, like I have a firm fine nib in mine right now and it's a wonderful writer. I also have like a medium stub nib that I can just swap out. So, I have one Estabrook and about five nibs. I can swap in and out to it and I probably have $50 total into my Estabrook, if you will.

Brad Dowdy: And it's probably the best writer of any of the vintage pens that I have just because I can get a nib that's really specific to my writing style, which is, you know, like a firm steel nib with a very, very fine tip. So, I love writing with that pen.

Myke Hurley: I have an observation about the vintage pen world. Sure. So, I'm adding some websites to our show notes here. Some resources for some of the different pens that you're mentioning. The vintage pen world lives in a place of very questionable web design.

Brad Dowdy: That is very true. All of the websites look nearly as old as the pens. That is true. So, yeah, it's just... Know what you're getting into. Yeah, know what you're getting into. You know, you're not gonna... You might not get the clearest answers or the best information all the time. It's out there. It's hard to find. And it's on GeoCities. So, it's gonna be tough. So, that's, again, do it in person. You know, find that stuff online. Read about it. Kind of get a base line of information. But then ask about it in person. That's the way to go. The second pen that everyone seems to love that gets a lot, a lot of play, even for people who only use modern pens because it really has a modern aesthetic, is the Parker 51. It's a really great barrel shape. It's a great barrel size.

Brad Dowdy: Parker's, you know, are just classic, classic pens from the early 1900s and mid-1900s. And the hooded nib design that they did, you know, back in the day, it was an effort to keep the nib wetter, if you will. So, more ink would flow more readily. You wouldn't have hard starts and things like that. And it's just a really cool design that speaks to a lot of people. The problem I've run into, and this is just total anecdotal information from the few pen shows that I've been to, is I have a hard time, for some reason, finding restored Parker 51s. There's a million of them out there, all in not great shape that I want to deal with. I'd rather pay more for one that's been restored, refurbished, and I can just ink up and start writing with. So, that's, again, you know, I went into the Atlanta Pen Show a few years ago with Parker 51 at the top of my list, and they were everywhere, but I never found one that quality enough that I felt comfortable with taking home and just writing with. They all needed something, you know, something was off. And I didn't want to deal with that. But related to the 51, the Parker Vacumatic is one of the prettiest pens ever created. You know, I have two. I have the silver furniture with the gray stripe. I forget they call this gray stripe, silver stripe. And then I have the beautiful golden web that was at the top of my list last year, and you went and bought that for me like the rascal that you are at the Atlanta Pen Show. It's still one of my favorite pens ever. It's stunning to look at. Every time I photograph this pen, Myke, people, like, go, whoa, wait, is that a golden web? Wow. It's a stunning. It's one of the most beautiful pens I've ever seen, and I'm super lucky and fortunate to have one. In this graded condition, it writes wonderfully. I love the nib on this one. And that's the thing is, most of these nibs are 14-karat gold nibs. So, they're nice and soft. They can be modified. Like, my Vacumatic has a medium nib in it, and it's actually way too wet and too wide, so I could get that one modified if I wanted to. But I kind of like it, how it is. Use it for something different. But the golden web has a finer, firmer nib, and I really, really, really enjoy writing with it. One thing you'll notice kind of across the board, and this is a little bit of a generic statement, and there's probably some untruth to it, but a lot of these pens are smaller. The golden web is actually the smallest of these pens that I own. It's smaller than my regular vac, but they range in size, like the Vacumatics range in size, from a small, almost pocketable pen to some really huge, huge pens. But in general, the vintage pens were just made smaller than they are these days for obvious reasons. The last one I want to mention is a question that comes up all the time, is people say, I want to write with a Flex nib. Well, modern Flex nibs are hard to come by. You know, you can get, on the low end, you have Noodlers with their steel nibs, but they're really, really bad pen barrels, and they break all the time. They're just hard to use. But they're inexpensive. It gives you kind of an idea of what you want to use if you want to try one. Then you move almost straight up into, if you're not using dip pens and dip nibs, you're moving straight up into a Pilot Falcon, which is a gold nib pen that's costing well into the mid-100s. And then on up for there, you can get some nib modifications done. You can get, you know, you can spend hundreds of hundreds of dollars on a modern Flex pen. But back when these pens were being made in the 20s and 30s, Waterman made a wonderful Flex nib that you can find examples of at pen shows, probably between $50 and $100. I think I paid like $90 for mine. It's like a beautiful hard rubber barrel. It's the standard Waterman 52. The nibs are wonderfully flexy, and what's nice is when you're not flexing it, it's got a really nice fine line, which I just like writing with. So I'm tinkering around with all these pens as I'm talking to you. But the Flex works great, and it's a really lightweight, long pen. If you see people that are really into Flex nibs, they own like stacks of Watermans or Waterman nibs in other pens. So you'll see that a lot. Different size nibs, different size Waterman nibs, manipulated to fit into other pen barrels that they have. So that's kind of your starter kit vintage pens. If you're interested in getting just one, you know, start looking at Esther Brooks, Parker 51s, Parker Vax, and Watermans. One I'm going to look for this year, which is always readily available, and for some reason I've never purchased one, is I want a vintage Pelican this year. So that's going to be my Atlanta Pen Show pen. I want to get a vintage Pelican. I love seeing some of the old green windows in the barrels. They just look really, really cool. They have some good, really nice old designs. I can probably get something for around $100 that I'll be very happy with. And I want to add that to the collection this year. So that's on my Atlanta Pen Show shopping list. Anything specific? Any specific Pelican model? No.

Myke Hurley: No, just anything.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, anything. I mean, I would prefer to not have gold trim. That's the other thing hard about vintage pens. A lot, a lot of gold. But there's so many options out there. Like, out of these five vintage pens I have inked up, only one of them has gold trim. And that's the golden web, and that's the only way it comes. And that's well worth it because it matches the rest of the barrel, right? I mean, it's the perfect complement to it. And the other reason I wanted to ink all these up is because I wanted to carry them around more. The only thing, you were talking about the things you didn't like about vintage pens. The only worry I have is that they're going to leak, right? But I've been carrying these around for probably a week and a half now in my Brasstown and in my backpack, and not a drop has leaked on any of these pens. So apparently I've got some good... I did my homework in purchasing these pens and, you know, that they were good quality or bought from someone who restored them themselves and just have really, really good seals and good internals in them. So I'm very lucky.

Brad Dowdy: It's something I want to get more into. I would like to have more vintage pens. I would like to have more nib variation like I have in all my modern pens. You know, I like to play around with the nibs, get lots of work done.

Brad Dowdy: And I don't see why I can't do that in vintage pens like, you know, my Vacumatics, which I just love looking at. Well, there's no point in owning a pen just to look at, in my opinion. You know, I want to use them. So I inked all these bad boys up and I'm ready to roll when the Atlanta pen show comes around and I'm going to look at doing a little bit more vintage shopping, if you will. You have any interest? Are you still just like, nah, not really my thing. Probably not going to do that in Atlanta.

Myke Hurley: I'll look at them. And this is the thing. So the way that I approach it, it's like, I'll look at them. And if I see something that I think is beautiful, then I might learn a little bit more about it. For me, with vintage pens, I start with just how they strike me visually. Sure. Because I don't expect to use them very much. So like, I just see them as things to own. Right.

Brad Dowdy: That's why I had to have the Vacumatic, right? There's hardly a prettier pen that's within, you know, normal price ranges from a vintage perspective. They're just stunners and they're readily available. And, you know, there's no way I could not own a Vacumatic. There's no way I could be into fountain pens and not own a Vacumatic. They're just that cool. So, yeah. Anyway, that's kind of my, like, I'm, I don't want to say I'm getting into a vintage kick, but I'm paying attention a little bit more. I'm trying to find some things that interest me and, you know, maybe go into the, to the rabbit hole of some things I like. Like this Pelican might be a thing. Like I'm content now with the Vacumatics I have, the Parker 51 I have. I might buy another Esther Brooker too, but those are kind of done. I want to look at Pelican. I want to see what other vintage stuff I can get in trouble with. And, you know, that might be a rabbit hole I get down into. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. And it's definitely something that interests me. So maybe there'll be more, more talk of it as we go down the line.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: So you, you, you have a, um, you have burning questions for me to wrap this episode up, right? Yeah. Like, uh, you, you, you have a lot you want to talk about that. I wasn't aware we're going to talk about. You kind of mentioned it. It's like, oh, we should talk about this. I'm like, yeah, whatever. So, uh, let's talk about, you know how I am. So let's talk about our, our good friends at Squarespace that helped me out with all these things. And, uh, then I'll, then I'll let you hammer me what you got, Myke.

Myke Hurley: All right. This week's episode is brought to you by Squarespace. The simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page, website, or online store. You can start building your own site today at squarespace.com and use the offer code INK at checkout to get 10% of your first purchase. With easy to use tools and templates, Squarespace will help you capture the everyday detail of what drives you because if it's worth the effort, it's worth sharing with the world. With Squarespace, you'll be able to build a site that will look professionally designed regardless of your skill level, no coding experience required. This is because Squarespace has state of the art technology that not only powers your site to ensure security and stability, but also gives you access to fantastic tools to allow you to build something on the internet. And I say something because it can be so many different things. As I said, you can build landing pages, you can build stores, you can have whole stores, you can have websites, you can have blogs, you can have band pages, you can have business pages, restaurant information. No matter what it is you're looking to put online, Squarespace is the place to start. Their site templates all look fantastic and you have great control of customizing them to make it your home. If you get stuck with anything or you need any help or support, they have a 24-17 that is there, live chat and email that Squarespace are committed to creating a great product and to supporting it for you. If you sign up for a year, you'll also get a free domain name allowing you to choose exactly what you want your site to be called and their plans start at just $8 a month. You can sign up for a free trial so you can go and tinker with Squarespace. You can build your Squarespace site during this trial and see if you're happy with it and see how it looks. There's no credit card required to start doing this and you can go today to squarespace.com and then when you do decide to sign up, because I'm sure you'll be very happy, make sure that you use the offer code INK to get 10% of your first purchase and to show your support for the Pen Addict podcast. Thank you to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and RelayFM. Awesome. All right, buddy. So there was just something, it came into our mind a couple of weeks ago and I just wrote some questions out because I wanted to talk to you about NOC. Every now and then I just like to kind of check in and see how things are going. But the big difference this time is now, like, NOC is your job and it wasn't before. Right? It was part of the stuff that you do, but now, like, this is one of the primary ways that you make your living, which it wasn't before, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. Now, it was a part of the stuff that I do. Now, it is the stuff that I do and there's a big difference. Yeah.

Pen Chalet

Myke Hurley: So, go ahead. I wanted to just dig into that a little bit. So, first up, let's see what's happening at NOC anyway before we kind of look at how you're doing so. Is there any news? What are you guys working on right now?

Brad Dowdy: We're working on working as much as possible. It's crazy right now with as far as capacity, our production capacity goes. So, we're super challenged with keeping stuff in stock, which is great, but we got to fix that, like, quickly because we're out of stock a lot of things. We're going to have, we have a plan in place for a post-Atlanta Penn show to change our production. Um, flow, if you will. Um, we'll talk about it more when we have more details, but just to give you a, a, a preview, we're bringing it all in-house. Um, instead of getting fabric cut outside, getting people to help us sew things outside, um, having someone else in the U.S. Make our cases. We've tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed multiple times, multiple thousands of dollars trying to get help to make our cases. We're going to do it ourselves. Um, that's going to involve a huge change at the shop. We're going to be buying equipment. Um, we're going to be buying a laser cutter. We're going to be doing all these crazy things. We're going to be hiring more people. We're going to like double and triple our capacity. Um, wow. Hopefully by the beginning of summer. Um, it's a big deal for us. Um, we just can't make enough cases and we have the support to sell a lot of cases and we got to figure out how to do it. And we've tried all these things over like the last year to try to increase capacity in what we thought was the best way to do it. And we're learning that the best way to do it is to do it ourselves. Um, it's going to require a lot of work. It's going to require a lot of money. Um, you know, we're doing, but we've, we've got the plan now. We've come to the, you know, we've, we've done all the, uh, done all the homework and we failed a lot of companies from, uh, trying to help us make products and, you know, to keep things how we want to keep things in the U S to keep our quality, the same. Um, we're going to do it ourselves. And, uh, that's, uh, it's going to be awesome, but it's, it's scary as all get out. I'm not going to lie. Me and Jeff are, uh, we're super anxious about this, but, uh, we know it's going to be successful and, um, it's just going to be a huge, huge change. And, um, we, we, we just have to make more cases. That's the news. We have to make more.

Myke Hurley: When you mentioned that, like, you know, about production stuff, that was not the route that I thought you were going to say, right? Like, uh, the route to fix our production is to do all of the production. Cause I know that me and you were talking last year, I think about like some of the companies that you trialed to see if they could build some stuff for you and it was good, but just not good enough. But, you know, I love that, um, that feeling, but this is a big thing. And like, so where, where you guys are right now and all the equipment and stuff that you're going to need, are you able to finance all of that?

Brad Dowdy: It depends. We're going to see how it goes after the Atlanta Penn show. Um, we've got some ideas otherwise. Um, you know, if we don't, you know, we can't just pay for it ourselves or, or what, how, what have you, I mean, we're definitely can pay for it ourselves. It just depends on how we're going to do it. You know, whether we just write checks and use credit cards, we're going to do another Kickstarter, which is probably highly likely for when our folios come out, which we've talked about before.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That seems like a genius idea to wrap those two things together.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's probably the jumping off point. So we'll have more news on that. This is definitely, we don't have time to do that before Atlanta. Um, there, we're just trying to make as much as we can for the show. Um, which actually, which helps the, the shop inventory as well. But, you know, we're just in a, we're, we're turning down side jobs right now because we can't fit them into our schedule, which sucks. Um, we hate doing that. Like collaborations and stuff like that. Yeah. Like we have collaboration, we've had collaboration opportunities we've had to turn down. That would be really, really fun and good for us to do because we don't have the capacity to do them and bringing everything in house will give us that. Um, having more employees, uh, will give us that ability to, to be more flexible. We can't get into retail until we do this. Um, we have, we've had retailers banging on our doors for years since we started and we keep telling them it's almost here. It's almost here. And it keeps not being almost here. It's, it's time to, uh, you know what, or get off the pot.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It feels like that you guys are in a position which was similar maybe to my personal position, which was like RelayFM was making money and we knew we were going to make money. But it was like, if I take the risk of leaving my job and doing it completely, I know we can make a lot more money, right? Like if we're able, if I'm able to focus all of my time and attention on it, then it's going to be great, right? Like I can put more and more into it and it's going to be worthwhile for everyone because all of my attention and all of my, um, all my resources will help. And it's like a similar kind of idea, right? You guys will be buying new equipment, hiring new people. All of that is super expensive to do. But by putting that investment in your investment is in money, not, not in time as such, because you kind of, you guys are already all in, uh, it will help grow your revenue, which is because getting into retail is going to like, you know, things could explode from that point. Right. Right. So this is a really, this is a very interesting development that I wasn't expecting, but I think it's fantastic. Are you going to be able to fit all of this into your little shop?

Brad Dowdy: We've already rearranged, we already rearranged in planning to, to lay this all out in the shop. Um, right now, yes, if we had to move, we'd be okay with it, but right now we have it set to where we could, with the equipment we want to buy and the people we want to hire. Um, we're going to push it to max capacity and it will all fit. Like we've had the electrician out to make sure, can we handle this equipment, that kind of stuff. So we're, we're trying to get ahead of the game here. Um, but you know, this, you're, you're getting all the behind the scenes stuff that we've been working on here for the past couple of months, really since I've come on full time, you know, we're coming to these realizations and, you know, we're going to have some product lineup changes, um, some colorway changes and all that'll be announced, you know, in the coming months, but, uh, it's all good stuff. It's all to get us to a point where you can go to our site and find a case you want and purchase it because it's in stock. That's where we got to get to.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, for sure. So the, the stock issues that you're going through is purely because people are buying more than you can make, right? Yeah. It's not that you guys don't make very many. Right. No, they're buying more than we can make. Which is kind of the situation you want to be in. Yeah. I mean, obviously you'd want to be able to sell to everybody, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, just for example, we put, it was like, it's probably been three weeks ago. Now we put a batch of, it was either 60 or 80 Sinclairs up on a Friday afternoon at noon and they were sold out by one. I mean, we just can't keep them in.

Myke Hurley: This is what I can't understand. Where are these people coming from?

Brad Dowdy: Everywhere, man. They, they love the NotCo. But like, how do they know? Which I'm grateful for. Like, how do they know that the stock goes up? Oh, we send out on, on our mailing list.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. We give, we give them our first shot. So we have a big mailing list. I don't think I want the mailing list. Well, you're a slacker.

Myke Hurley: I know. I'm going to sign up right now.

Brad Dowdy: Knowing you, you probably took me off. Maybe. Maybe on purpose. But yeah, I mean, we just, we, we want to have the stock available for people to buy. I mean, that's kind of what you do as a business, right?

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Is it the newsletter that I'm signing up for?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. All right. Well, there you go. Sign up.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, we usually, we usually give our, our, our newsletter followers first crack at, at new stock.

Myke Hurley: So in regards.

Brad Dowdy: And usually vanishes like crazy fast.

Myke Hurley: Well, it sounds like it. So in regards to new products, um, you mentioned the folios. Yeah. Uh, is that still kind of the main thing on the horizon?

Brad Dowdy: That's definitely happening. I mean, there's going to be two folio sizes. There'll be the notebook size that I take a lot of pictures of. And then an A5 size, um, to fit the, um, the notepads, the, the top, uh, the top bound notepads, um, which is going to, both of those are going to be really, really awesome. They're going to be cool cases. I, we're, we're excited about those. The pattern's done on the small case and we're finalizing the pattern on the big case. So this will be a go, no doubt. So it's happening. It's happening. But you just need to decide out, decide how, right? Yep. Yep. How and when. So it's just going to depend with all this machinery stuff and, and hiring stuff. So, and we're not, we're not sweating it too hard till after Atlanta. We don't have the mental capacity to fit all that in right now. But once Atlanta ends, um, we don't have another show until, uh, DC. So that's going to be our window where you're going to see a lot of knock code changes between Atlanta and DC. Um, there'll be a lot going on, on the knock front, if you will.

Myke Hurley: All right.

Brad Dowdy: But I know you two.

Myke Hurley: Right. And I know this ain't it. You got any work on any of the prototypes or stuff that we've not seen before? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to give any kind of, any kind of hints to what you're looking at?

Brad Dowdy: You'll see it in Atlanta. Oh yeah?

Myke Hurley: What, just me?

Atlanta Product

Brad Dowdy: No. Uh, if you come to the Atlanta pen show, you'll see it. Oh. So we're going to do, I'll, let's see if I can say this without getting in too much trouble with Jeff. I can probably say it. So you've seen our, we've done some small batch series, right? Yeah. Where we just make one-off colors, things like that. We're going to expand. We're going to not call it that anymore. Um, it has a different name. I'm not going to say the name. We'll tease that. Um, so we're going to focus. That's actually, this is another reason why we want to do it all ourselves because we want to have this product line of special items, either in materials, colors, or designs. So we're going to try out a new design, a new physical case design for Atlanta. That we're going to launch at the Atlanta pen show, but just in this small batch style, it's not necessarily going to be a permanent item. It, people may hate it, you know, that kind of thing. It's in a different configuration. Yeah. Total different configuration. Um, and, but this, this line is now going to be, have a consistent name and have a consistent, um, use for us, a consistent presentation, if you will, to what it's being used for and why you might be interested or might not be interested in it at all. So yeah, there'll be a new, a new product in Atlanta with a new, uh, with a new, uh, product line name.

Myke Hurley: This, this new special Atlanta product, will it only be available there?

Myke Hurley: Probably. Cause you reckon it's going to sell out what you got of it?

Brad Dowdy: Uh, maybe we're not going to make that many of them. These are, people have to remember with not, we hand make all these stuff. This is why we don't have inventory because a factory and machines are not making these. We're running these by hand through a sewing machine. People's hands are making these cases. They're hard to make. And that's why a lot of people weren't able to make them because they're too difficult, too costly, and they can't meet the quality that we have learned over the years that we can do. Um, so, you know, anyone that gets, you know, I, I know people get frustrated with us not being in stock, but we're physically making these cases with our hands. Um, and it's, it's a lot of work. So, so like, are we going to have a new case style at Atlanta? Yes. Are we going to have 200 of them? No. You know, are we going to have 40 of them if we're lucky, you know, we make all this stuff, you know, that kind of thing. So.

Myke Hurley: All right. How has it been for you? So how much time are you spending at the knockoff?

Brad Dowdy: Um, I tried for two days a week, um, when I was traveling in like for LA, you know, I missed like two weeks in a row where I wasn't there and that was tough. I didn't like that. Um, but now I'm back on schedule. I'm there two days a week, usually Mondays and Thursdays. That's how my schedule is working right now. Um, I really enjoy my time there. I want to be there more. Um, if it comes down to it, you know, when I'm talking about this, um, this timeframe, one, as we get ramping up for Atlanta and two, after Atlanta, when we're trying to do all these changes, uh, if I have to be there three days a week, I can do that. Um, you know, if in two years I have to be up there all the time, well, I'll move and just make it, uh, you know, make it something easier. You know, I'm, I'm flexible on when I need to be up there. Um, as long as I'm, uh, contributing, um, pulling my weight when I'm there, you know, I can't, uh, I'm not a sewer like the rest of the team there. So as long as I'm able to contribute in other ways, I'm happy to be there as much as I can. And definitely, uh, you know, I I'm definitely there two days a week and, uh, it's cool. Cause we get a lot of people coming by, uh, during, during the week now. And, uh, you know, I'm going to lunch with a, with a customer on, on Thursday, just, you know, doing these neat meetup things would give us Jeff an opportunity to, to hang out with our customers and friends that, uh, want to stop by the shop. So it's been cool. Um, it's been working so far, two days a week has been great. And, um, you know, I can always do more though.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Cause I guess the thing that's worth mentioning, you know, just for the sake of mentioning it, you don't live in Atlanta.

Brad Dowdy: No, it's a, on a, on a good day, like on a, a weekend travel day with no traffic, it's an hour and a half from my house to the shop.

Myke Hurley: But Atlanta traffic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I've kind of got it timed down to where if I can make it under two hours, I'm happy. Yeah. If it's over two hours, I'm get start getting kind of ticked. So I try to go early and more importantly, I leave early. Like I'm never there at three o'clock. I mean, I'm usually gone by two just so I can get out of town. Um, and I'm able to get in, I'm able to get in the shop early enough to get everything done. Most importantly, meet with Jeff, you know, Jeff and I being face to face, either talking about products, designing products. Um, you know, like in one day, you know, last week, like last Thursday, we designed a new notebook that we're going to launch in Atlanta. Um, which I didn't mention that before. Um, a new, um, enamel pin we're going to launch in Atlanta. Um, we've got, Oh, is that the one that you said? Yeah. The fishing vest one that I sent out.

Myke Hurley: No, the, what you just said then the, the, the enamel thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing you sent me?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I put it up on Instagram now so you can talk about it. All right. Cause it's so cool. It's going to come out awesome.

Myke Hurley: Oh my gosh.

Brad Dowdy: The previews of it look killer. So I'm really excited about that. I, um, I've already, I've already said to you, you keep, keep one of those things aside. Yeah. That's going to be a stock item for us. I mean, that's just going to be something we'll always have. Cause it's really cool. Um, where is it on Instagram? I don't see it. It's in the not a feed. Oh, that would be why. So that's the real sample. That's the actual sample. I think I just sent you like a digital picture of something we had on the screen. That's actually the, what came back. It looks even better than I could have imagined.

Myke Hurley: That is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I've seen this one. That is fantastic. I cannot wait to get my hand on one of these. That's such a cool little thing to do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm really excited about it. Um, but you know, it's getting Jeff and I in the same room. We can be awfully productive. So, um, we, we definitely like it when we're both there, um, to, to get things done. Like we can knock out so much in a short, uh, short amount of time.

Business Operations

Myke Hurley: One of the big things, at least that I've found with me and Steven get together, um, is that just being able to talk through stuff together is, is one of the biggest benefits of when we can be in the same room. Yep. Totally.

Brad Dowdy: And, um, you know, talking, just talking business, you know, stuff, you know, the not, the not making stuff, you know, you know, doing all the banking and the accounting. We sat down, I had to do taxes the other day. You know, we sit and talk about that kind of stuff, you know, the boring stuff that you have to do as a business, um, in person is really the only way to go. And, um, you know, I, I enjoy being up there even though, you know, it's like a long drive, but you know, that's no big deal. Twice a week. I can totally deal with that and I have to do it more. I have to do it more. You know, it's part of owning and running a business, right? It's, uh, it's only going to be successful, you know, as successful as, uh, the amount of time and effort you put into it. So you hungry over there. Can you hear that? I can hear that. Yeah, totally. My stomach's, it's going out. It's out of hand. It just keeps doing that over and over again. I don't know why.

Myke Hurley: I thought I let it go one time, right? Like, cause people might not notice it, but it happens a couple of times and you got it. You got it. You got to point it out. Cause someone, someone's hungry. Yeah, really? So we should wrap this thing up. No, no field notes, man. No field notes, males. Okay. You know that, you know, it's going to come through like as soon as we're

Brad Dowdy: done. So they were talking about in the, uh, in the chat room. I don't know if you saw it. We should just marathon the podcast until we just keep going. Yeah. I mean, that isn't the worst idea, but I've run out of things to talk about. Yeah. And you can tell my voice is going. I've still haven't recovered from like two or three weeks ago. My voice.

Myke Hurley: The voice isn't the problem here. It's, it's clearly a stomach. Yeah, really? That's the real issue we've got. Man, that's so funny. Yeah. God, nearly 200 episodes and we still haven't worked out. Professional. I know. Right. It's overrated. Yeah. Yeah. Professionalism is overrated. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Professional pod. This is how professional podcasters do it.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. I mean, that's what we are now. So I guess it kind of by proxy. This is how it's done. All right.

Brad Dowdy: I'm laughing at the chat room now.

Myke Hurley: They really want us to keep going until the email comes. Excuse me. Well, how about we wrap up the show and then maybe, who knows, maybe it will come during the live stream thing and then we can, I don't know, we can do it then.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We can always jump back in. You have some editing magic. Magic.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We'll see. Maybe if anything pops up at the end of the episode, then you'll know that me and Brad got back together to talk about the show. Otherwise, next week we'll talk about them because you'll probably have them anyway. I'll get them some point within the next month.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. What's funny is I didn't see a shipping notification. Usually I get a shipping notification.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I got mine. I got mine. See, I didn't. I wonder if my, I don't think my subscription expired, but whatever. I ain't done.

Myke Hurley: Cause we, didn't we resubscribe at the same time and I had to renew mine for this batch.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. This would be a good B sides, a Relay FM B sides. When that mail comes in, we can jump on and do it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Brad, Brad, Brad and Myke wait for the mail. All right. But let's wrap this show up. All right. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you want to catch our show notes, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 195. Uh, thank you so much for listening as always. And for being such a great community that we love so dearly. We really do love all of you. If you want to catch up with us online, there's a few places you can do that. If you want to find Brad, he is over at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. And he is at penaddict on Instagram. And you can find all of Brad's stuff over at penaddict.com and knock.co. And I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. So you can find me there if you so wish. Thank you so much again to Harry's and Squarespace for helping make this episode possible. And thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.